


The Crippling Fear of Colliding Stars

by harpydora



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Biting, Frottage, M/M, Porn With Plot, Sentinel/Guide Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:55:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9085567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harpydora/pseuds/harpydora
Summary: Even though it had been years—years—since the last time Magnus had used his empathic gifts, he still knew a zoned-out Sentinel when he saw one. It was the sort of bone-deep knowledge that never really faded, but it had generally become easier to suppress that first impulse to reach out. He had to be good at suppressing it for someone like the Director to not even pick up on the fact that he was an unattached Guide.
  (Or: that self-indulgent Sentinel AU that only like two people ever wanted.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse. This is purely self-indulgent fluff. Sentinel AUs are my kryptonite and HorribleThing encouraged me and now here we are. I'll see myself out of the fandom now.

Sometimes, late at night, when sleep eluded him and even the comforting weight of Steven's fish-ball wasn't enough, Magnus wondered: he wondered what the rest of the Bureau would think if they knew; he wondered what might change if he stopped playing things quite so close to the vest; he wondered if, maybe, once their work was done, he could finally let his guard down.

He never wondered what his life would be like if he hadn't lost his first Sentinel. The hole in his chest that Julia had left when she'd been killed still ached, but that wound was closed. It wouldn't do to keep prodding at it until it opened up again. She never would have wanted her Guide to spend his whole life in a pit of despair, and he'd spent too long climbing out of it to look back now.

Magnus suspected fairly strongly that the Director was, herself, a Sentinel. He suspected also that Angus would one day become an even better Guide than he had been... before. And, of course, there was Taako.

But he never let himself think about _that_ for long at all.

*

Even though it had been years— _years_ —since the last time Magnus had used his empathic gifts, he still knew a zoned-out Sentinel when he saw one. It was the sort of bone-deep knowledge that never really faded, but it had generally become easier to suppress that first impulse to _reach out_. He had to be good at suppressing it for someone like the Director to not even pick up on the fact that he was an unattached Guide.

And yet there he was in the middle of a pack of fiendish dire wolverines, Merle to one side of him (waving his _Extreme Teen Bible_ frantically in the air as he cast some spell) and Taako to the other. Except Taako stood still as the grave. His eyes were wide, fixed on some point in the middle distance and not comprehending the three wolverines closing in.

Magnus still knew a zoned-out Sentinel when he saw one; had seen his fair share when he'd set out in the wake of Julia's death; had left every single one to their fate because he could never, ever imagine opening himself up like that again. But this wasn't some random traveler or some passer-by. It wasn't a stranger that he'd maybe shared drinks with.

He hefted up his shield. He could fend off one of the wolverines' attacks, maybe two of them if he were exceptionally lucky—hadn't someone said something about it being better to be lucky than good? Ha!—but that third wolverine would tear Taako to ribbons.

As he raised his physical shield, he let his metaphysical ones drop.

It had been so _long_ since he'd let himself do this, let himself flex his empathic abilities, let himself _reach_ . For a queasy, uncertain moment, he thought he was going to be sick from it. But Taako's own spirit called out to him and, paradoxically, pulled _him_ back from the brink. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the flash of russet fur—Taako's spirit companion, a mongoose, _of course_ —before it disappeared into the underbrush.

Time had always been a slippery thing when he'd had to ground Julia. She burned with an elemental fire that melted every moment their minds touched into something golden and syrupy and impossible to hold. He'd learned how to cope with it, had found ways to work around it, was prepared for it whenever he had to reel Julia's senses in.

Taako's mind was nothing like Julia's. He was cool, almost chilly, shot through with equal parts self-doubt and self-aggrandizing that would've crippled other folks Magnus had known. Where Julia had been made out of fire, Taako was cut from diamond-hard crystal that focused everything into a single pin-prick. With their minds joined, Magnus could slice each moment into infinite smaller slivers to chart each participant's movement from one point to another. But that wasn't what he was here for.

"Come back to us, Taako," he says though not aloud. "Come back to me, buddy. You gotta come back or we're all fucked." When Taako didn't respond, he tried again. "You have to come back. Please. Just listen to my voice and come back to me and we'll get through this."

He felt a shiver of something like recognition. The crystalline structure of Taako's mind shuddered and then suddenly felt _inhabited_. Everything thrummed with frenetic energy. Suddenly it was like the crystal glowed from within, lit by Taako's consciousness.

For a moment, he felt that razor-sharp focus fall on him. It pinned him as surely as a sword through the gut, but infinitely sweeter. Just as Magnus knew he could pick apart moments in this state, he knew that Taako could pick _him_ apart as easily. Just like Julia could have melted him down and reformed him. Magnus sighed. "C'mon," he whispered to hide his trepidation, "let's fuck some shit up, then do this later, okay?"

In response, the world snapped back into focus. Beside him, Merle was still gesticulating with his bible. On the other side, Taako held his umbra staff out in both hands. Motes of flame dripped from its tip like water. Magnus's heart ached a little, for Julia. Then he caught a glimpse of russet fur in the underbrush out of the corner of his eye.

He raised Railsplitter. He could think about the ramifications of that later, like he'd told Taako. After they fucked some shit up.

*

"Later" turned out to be one week, two days, and seventeen hours after they made it (scuffed, but whole) back to the moon. That one week, two days, and seventeen hours were not the most painful span of time Magnus had had the misfortune to live through (literally nothing could compare to the moment he felt Julia's life snuffed out, her bond with him severed), nor was it the most awkward (it's best that no one speak about the time he tried to train in bardcraft while a teenager). But it wasn't the easiest span of time, either, and the way that Magnus's brain kept trying to dissect each discrete element of time into its component parts only made it worse.

For that one week, two days, and seventeen hours, Magnus did not see Taako at all.

There was certainly plenty for Magnus to do in the interim, and he threw himself into each endeavor with gusto. His room grew lousy with wood shavings from all the new whittling projects he began; his muscles grew sore from the new training routine Carey started him on. Each night, he fell into his bed utterly exhausted, even though he didn't always sleep.

When, at last, Taako finally knocked on his door, he found he still wasn't so wrung out that he couldn't feel _relief_. (He ignored the fact that he knew it was Taako even before the knocking began. He ignored the way he could feel the almost-chill of Taako's mind even with all of his metaphysical shields firmly in place. He ignored the streak of red fur that he saw bolt under his bed before he even made it half-way to the door.)

Taako didn't wait to be invited in. He slipped past Magnus without even letting his robe brush Magnus's side and he threw himself onto the worn, overstuffed sofa that Carey kept threatening to dispose of. Before Magnus had even closed the door, Taako whirled on him and demanded, "What the fuck was _that_?"

"I'm sorry," Magnus said, because he should've seen this coming, he should've realized how badly he'd fucked up in trying to connect with Taako like that without his permission. "I can explain—"

"Oh, I should fucking hope so," Taako said. "Because that was some weird shit to pull on a dude in the middle of getting ambushed by fucking fiendish dire wolverines."

"We were getting _ambushed by fiendish dire wolverines_ ," Magnus reiterated, "and I know that's not the kind of choice a Guide is supposed to just _make_ for a Sentinel, but I wasn't about to just sit there and watch you get mauled."

"What in the fresh hell are you even talking about?"

Even with the press of Taako's Sentinel power slowly filling the room, it takes Magnus a shameful number of heartbeats to realize that _Taako is completely serious_ . Dear sweet Istus, Taako didn't even _know_.

Magnus had already slumped against the door and slid down it before he realized what had happened, and the first few sounds past his lips were strangled half-chuckles. "Hah! All this time we were working together and it turns out you didn't even know."

"Know _what?_ That you're acting weird? That my head's been so full of fuck since we got back that I can barely think? Huh? What is it that I'm supposed to know, here?" Though his words started out calm, each progressive syllable betrayed his rising panic until the room fairly vibrated with it. Every fiber of Magnus's being ached in response, yearned to reach out and soothe it all away.

At great length, Magnus said, "It's… It'd be easier for me to show you."

Taako leveled a skeptical look at him, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling so hard that it was nearly cartoonish. Magnus would've laughed at him if he hadn't been so fucking serious. Instead, he just did his best to hold Taako's gaze without flinching.

"Okay," Taako said, "I'm watching."

Magnus took a deep, steadying breath. It was so much harder now to let go of his metaphysical shields. Without the threat of imminent danger, all that was left was his own anxiety at Taako's confusion. But there wasn't any point in trying to delay the inevitable because it _was_ inevitable. The moment he'd opened up himself to wrest Taako free of the zone-out, he'd known on some level that he would have to open himself up again.

He let his shields drop.

Letting his mind touch Taako's when it was caught in a zone-out had been like laying his hand on a facet of an enormous diamond. Letting his mind touch Taako's now, when they were both so very present, was an entirely different experience. It seemed like every molecule of the air between them vibrated with the weight of Taako's unease. Magnus reached across the gap, extending his own mind until he brushed up against the edges of Taako's self.

"What—?" The word came out ragged and broken. Taako's eyes were wide, but from his position with all his walls shut down, Magnus knew it wasn't out of fear. That was something, at least.

"Taako, I don't know all there is to know about where you came from," Magnus began, "but I'm betting you never stayed in one place that long." When Taako made no moves to contradict him, when there was no flare of indignation at an untrue assumption, he continued, "If you had, maybe someone would've noticed and would've told you. Have—have you ever heard of Sentinels and Guides?"

"No," Taako lied. "Never." As if at great distance, Magnus caught a faint echo. An argument. A name (who was Sazed and why would he make Taako lie about this, of all things?). Magnus closed his eyes against the looming sense of confusion and anger and loss, instead trying to emanate a calmness he didn't quite feel. Taako's mind stilled.

Magnus continued. "Taako, what happened last week, that's what's called 'zoning out.' It's when a Sentinel gets overloaded and their brain shuts down. It's… it's the sort of thing a Guide is supposed to keep from happening."

He took another breath and steeled himself for what his next words had to be. "I know I shouldn't have just _done_ that without telling you, but I figured it was better for you to be alive and mad at me than any of the other things that could've happened. I'm sorry. After this right here, it won't happen again. I promise."

The revulsion and horror that rolled off Taako was so powerful that it nearly knocked the breath out of Magnus. If he hadn't already been slumped against the door, he would've toppled over from the force of it. Gods, he fucked up. He fucked up so _badly_. What had he expected to happen? Wasn't this really the best case scenario? Wasn't—

When he heard Taako's voice, it was coming from right in front of him. He felt a hand fall on his knee, but Taako had to speak again before Magnus could bring himself to open his eyes. Relief replaced the revulsion, and Taako heaved a sigh of his own. "Magnus, my guy, my dude, my man, I am gonna need you to dial back on the emo here. I'm not pissed at you. I like my hide in one piece, y'know? So that was a good call on your part."

"Taako, I'm a Guide with my shields down here," Magnus said, "and you're an unbonded Sentinel. I can tell you're disgusted."

Taako winced. "Okay, fine. I might've told a teensy little fib about not knowing what Guides are. But I'm not disgusted with _you_. You've saved my bacon I don't know how many times. What's one more, right? C'mon, big guy, gimme a little credit here." He nudged one of Magnus's knees with his own until Magnus took the hint and made enough room for Taako to wedge himself between his legs. "So what's all this got to do with my head being full of fuck? They're related, right?"

A surprised bark of laughter escaped Magnus before he clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle it. "Oh yeah it's related," he said. "Because you're unbonded and I'm unbonded and things can never go easy." With Taako so close and with his emotions running so much calmer now, it was easy to let his hand rest on top of the one Taako had yet to remove from his knee. When he'd been with Julia, skin contact had always made it easier for them both to stay grounded. Now, with Taako's cool fingers under his palm, he nearly felt undone.

He let his eyes fall shut again and tilted his head back until it was once again resting on the door. Without having to look, he could sense Taako's attention drifting. It was nothing like sitting with Julia, nothing like the warm afternoons they'd spend with their fingers and their minds intertwined, and yet it made his heart ache all the same. Gods, how he'd missed this.

"You know…" Taako trailed off. Magnus knew by the way the world seemed to vibrate that Taako was gathering the correct words to package his thoughts in. "You know. Now that we're here, my head's feeling pretty clear. Is that related, too?"

"That's how Guides work, yeah," Magnus said without opening his eyes. If he didn't open his eyes, he wouldn't have to watch when Taako eventually got restless and decided to leave. Taako hummed in response.

"You keep saying 'unbonded' like I'm supposed to give a shit," Taako finally said. He shifted in between Magnus's legs and then his weight rested against Magnus's chest. Magnus's breath hitched in his throat. "You wanna enlighten me?"

Dear sweet Istus, in that moment Magnus wanted nothing more than to show Taako everything about bonding with a Sentinel. He couldn't trust himself to speak, so he just shook his head. If he opened his mouth now, with Taako pressed up against him and all of his shields down, it was almost certain the first words out of his mouth would be 'just fucking bond with me, _now_.'

Taako sighed, something that Magnus felt more than heard. "You think you're being all clever with the whole not talking thing, but I can tell you've got something to say. So just spit it out, my dude."

There was no winning. The best Magnus could hope for was to minimize his losses. He swallowed and bent every fiber of his being toward making his tongue work properly. "It's. It's this thing. Sentinels and Guides are kind of useless on their own. They work best together, right?"

"Uh-huh," Taako drawled. "Yeah, I get that."

"Well, when… when a Sentinel and a Guide decide to work together as—" He paused, tried to catch his breath. Gods. "When they decide they want to be a team, they… bond. With each other. And it's like their souls are connected no matter how far apart they are. Until…" He couldn't say it, but he felt the slow thrum of Taako's dawning realization. "Yeah. Until that."

"That's a, uh. That's a pretty heavy commitment, my guy," Taako said.

It was. Saying anything else felt like it would just belabor the point, so Magnus didn't say a word.

"And it's like this?" Taako asked, using his free hand to gesture in some vague way that didn't adequately encompass the situation.

It was enough for Magnus to catch the meaning, however. "No. It's… it's a lot more than this. But this is pretty much how it starts."

" _More_ isn't _better_."

"It's both," Magnus said with no hesitation. He had to stop himself from going further; from talking about the quiet joy when your Sentinel is with you in mind, body, and soul; from explaining that nothing— _nothing_ —will ever compare to the sense of _belonging_ when your Sentinel bonds with you. Istus preserve him, he just hoped he could get out of the conversation with at least a small scrap of his dignity intact.

"Okay," Taako said.

Silence stretched out between them like a yawning chasm. One heartbeat passed. Then two. Three. "What?"

Taako shrugged. "I said okay. You're not going all hard of hearing on me or something, are you? It sounds like a sweet deal, and the chances of either of us making it out of this whole 'questing for magical items' thing alive without all the advantages we can get are pretty slim, my dude. So, tell me: what's a Sentinel like me gotta do to bond with a Guide like you, huh?"

Another heartbeat passed, and another. "What?" Magnus repeated. He couldn't have heard that correctly, could he? This wasn't how any of it was supposed to _go_. He opened his eyes and saw Taako had twisted around to look him in the face. Taako wasn't laughing. It hadn't been a joke.

Magnus swallowed, tried to speak, cleared his throat, tried again. "It's, um. Kind of intimate."

"Well _duh_ ," Taako scoffed. "We're getting soul-married for the health bennies."

"No, I mean—" But Taako cut him off.

"It'd be easier to show me, right? Then go on and _show me_."

He'd spent years keeping a death-grip on his Guide instincts. He'd been propositioned by Sentinels before because he had been (was still) a damn good Guide. A handful of people, most of them complete strangers, had asked him to bond with them, and he had rejected every one of them without a second thought. But this was different. This was _Taako_.

"Okay," he said.

Before he could think better of it (but really, this was the best possible outcome, how could he think better of it?), Magnus wrapped his arms around Taako's ribcage and hauled him up so that Magnus only had to bend his neck a little to press a kiss into Taako's jaw.

Taako sighed a surprised little _oh_ in response, but the revelation didn't trigger any strong feelings of disgust. Instead, he squirmed in Magnus's arms until he and Magnus were face to face. This close, it was impossible not to notice the dusting of golden freckles across the bridge of Taako's nose, and Magnus had to fight down the urge to lay his lips on every single one.

Thankfully, blessedly, he didn't have to fight the urge for long because Taako took Magnus's face in both his hands and put his lips to other uses. The flood of sensation (Taako's soft, soft lips on his; one of Taako's fingertips idly tracing the scar on his cheek; the full weight of Taako's focus gently tugging at the edges of him like he was a gift to be unwrapped) utterly fried his ability to think clearly. All he could manage was breathing, and even that was shaky ground.

Eventually he felt an interrogatory nudge, a sense of _this is nice but is it what we're supposed to be doing_. There was no hope of making his tongue work to respond, so Magnus did the best he could manage. There wasn't a formal process or a rigid set of steps to forging a bond between Sentinel and Guide, but there were steps that could be followed. Magnus focused on that as best he could, trying to hold the image in his mind of what he wanted— _needed_ —Taako to do.

A little thrill of understanding sparked between them, chased by delight. "Okay, yeah," Taako mumbled into the corner of his mouth. He dipped his head, trailing little kisses down Magnus's jaw. Magnus shuddered when he felt the scrape of Taako's teeth against the sensitive skin of his neck. His fingers clenched on the fabric of Taako's shirt and he sucked in a hissing breath. Taako paused, and for a split-second, Magnus thought he was about to stop. He tilted his head back and to the side, leaving his throat open and inviting, hoped that Taako would _take the gods damned hint_.

Taako took the hint, but he also took his time. He let his fingers skim over Magnus's cheek, his temple, come to rest in Magnus's hair. His mouth explored Magnus's skin, first with featherlight kisses, then with exploratory nibbles, then, finally, bearing down hard enough that Magnus has no choice but to gasp because _yes, this, this is good, leave a mark_.

Maybe he said it out loud, or maybe Magnus was just thinking it loudly enough, but Taako obliged him all the same. By the time he pulled back, flushed and breathless, Magnus knew that there was going to be a dark, dark bite mark on his neck in the morning.

"Good?" asked Taako.

"Yeah," Magnus managed to respond. "Keep going?" What he meant was _are you still okay with this?_ and _will you do that again?_ and _do you want to go further?_

Taako made a breathy sound that might have been a chuckle. "Yeah."

*

Taako left three more marks on Magnus's neck before one of them (and in his dazed, giddy state, Magnus could not tell who) had the idea to move to somewhere more comfortable than the floor. It was trivial for Magnus to scoop Taako up in his arms and carry him back to his narrow bunk, but he found walking to be something of a challenge when Taako kept tugging impatiently at the laces of his shirt. By the time they collapsed together on Magnus's bed, his shirt laces were a in a snarl that Taako was trying to unsuccessfully undo with this fingers and teeth.

When Magnus finally batted Taako's hands away and saw to the problem himself, Taako was flustered and pouting and possibly the most beautiful thing Magnus had seen in such a long time. With Taako's face flushed and his eyes half-lidded and his hair just the slightest bit mussed, focusing on the task at hand was nearly impossible.

"Oh for—" Taako muttered something under his breath and something tingled under Magnus's fingers. The laces straightened themselves out, and then Taako pulled Magnus's shirt over his head. "Happy now? I had to use a spell slot on your dumb shirt. Who makes shirts so dumb that you can't get out of them?"

"What about yours?" Magnus asked, gesturing vaguely at the fact that Taako was now wearing twice as much clothing as he was, and his shirt—with it straps and decorative trim—was certainly more complicated.

"You're right, you _obviously_ don't know how to operate basic clothing," Taako said with a sigh. In a matter of moments, his shirt joined Magnus's on the floor.

Magnus took a moment to feel cheated, to be sad that he couldn't have taken his time figuring out the best way to divest Taako of his clothing while relishing the feel of his skin. Only a moment, though, because he realized that there was nothing to prevent him from running his hands over Taako but the space between them. He let his hands come to rest on Taako's slender waist and tugged him closer.

Taako was, as always, obliging; he used one hand to hitch his skirt up so he could more easily arrange himself in Magnus's lap. If Magnus hadn't already been enraptured by tracing the curve of Taako's spine, he would have had to take a moment to appreciate the glimpse of thigh between the rumpled skirt and the tops of Taako's stockings. As it was, he found himself delightfully preoccupied with dragging his fingers up and down Taako's back.

Taako arched into his touch, made a pleased noise in the back of his throat somewhere between a purr and a moan, ground his hips against Magnus's. Magnus gasped, the sudden friction making him keenly aware of how hard he'd become. Judging by the lascivious quirk to Taako's lips, he'd noticed, too.

A series of mental images flitted through Magnus's head, almost too fast for him to process: Taako laying on his back and Magnus sucking the soft flesh of his inner thigh; Magnus with his pants shoved down to his knees and Taako with his lips wrapped around Magnus's cock; Magnus drawing angry red nail marks down Taako's back while Taako rode him. Magnus closed his eyes against the visions and tried to focus on _here_ and _now_.

He focused on the smoothness of Taako's skin under his palms, on the hot breath against his cheek as Taako leaned in for another kiss, on the delighted shiver that ran up Taako's spine when Magnus let his fingernails find purchase. In response, Taako ground himself against Magnus again, and even through the layers of fabric between them (underwear, breeches, panties), Magnus could tell that Taako was hard, too.

Any chance of coherent thought melted away when Taako returned to the very first mark he'd left on Magnus's neck, so sweetly taking the flesh between his teeth and applying the barest hint of pressure. Magnus groaned, a low and needy sound that only seemed to spur Taako on. As Taako revisited each of his marks, Magnus found himself rutting hopelessly against him, his world reduced to only the points where Taako's body touched his.

The pleasure built up between them with embarrassing swiftness. It was over too soon, with Magnus tensing and pulling Taako tight against him as he came, and Taako shaking in his arms. Magnus laid there, one arm still holding Taako close to him, trying to get his breath under control. An overwhelming sense of rightness and peace washed over him, and for the first time in a long while, his mind was still.

"Ugh," groaned Taako, "gross. You're seriously expecting me to just lie here like this?"

Magnus pressed a tired, fond kiss to Taako's hair and let Taako squirm out of his grasp. "Nah. Never." He watched in lazy wonder as Taako stood on shaky legs and stretched his muscles like a just-woken cat.

Taako snorted. "Oh my gods, you are hopeless. C'mon, my dude, you're coming with me. I'm not gonna so much as look at you until you've had a bath."

They didn't speak as they crowded into Magnus's bathroom. Magnus stripped off the remainder of his clothing and slumped into the tub that wasn't quite large enough for him. Taako shimmied out of his skirt and panties and kicked them aside before peeling off his stockings. He arranged himself on top of Magnus despite earlier protestations and used his foot to start the tap running. Magnus noted with mild surprise that, somehow, Taako's toes remained immaculately painted despite the rest of him looking like a disheveled wreck.

Taako hummed and laid back against Magnus's chest as the warm water slowly filled the tub. "So what now, my man?" Taako asked. "Do we get decoder rings or something?"

"That's not how Sentinels work," Magnus said, rolling his eyes. "Now we just… look out for each other." _And I don't let you out of my sight,_ he thought.

"Mmm." Taako used one toe to tweak the water temperature. "Just 'look out for each other,' that's it? _Nothing_ else?"

It took a moment for Taako's meaning to actually dawn on Magnus. "Taako. You do know that humans need some time to recover after, well, y'know…"

"Ugh, fine," Taako grumbled. Magnus could hear the pout in Taako's voice and he hid his smile by leaning down and planting a kiss on the top of Taako's head.


End file.
